


in front of you (i am so afraid you will have gone)

by arysthaeniru



Category: Secret (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon Compliant, Car Accidents, Drinking, F/F, Female Friendship, Idols, Implied Sexual Content, Male-Female Friendship, Melancholy, Minor Violence, Navel-Gazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-05 15:26:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10311269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysthaeniru/pseuds/arysthaeniru
Summary: Hana is not good at playing Orpheus, or at being patient, or at having any sort of courage for herself.what she dreamed of was disappearing into the seen, not of disappearing, lord, into the real--give me that place where i'm erased - Lorie Graham





	

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [kpopolymfics2017](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/kpopolymfics2017) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>  **Jo Kwon – "Crosswalk"**  
> [lyrics](http://www.kpoplyrics.net/jokwon-crosswalk-lyrics-english-romanized.html) | [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd46Sk2ClPQ) | [supplementary](www.flickr.com/photos/mizmi9/6398647433/in/faves-digianalogue/) [prompts](http://67.media.tumblr.com/41ca5acdfef4aa3529ced67912d5cbe7/tumblr_oh44cxGAuk1v9m0i0o1_500.jpg)
> 
>   
>  this gif is basically this entire fic
> 
> Much thanks to everybody who held my hand about this and brainstormed ideas with me, especially H who puts up with so much shit from me without any complaint, and my teammates in #teamgaybathtub who inspired me in many ways. See ending note for google-form rating of how this fic was!

Sometimes, Hana forgets where she is. 

When she’s lying in bed, in that haze between dreams and reality in the mornings, before her alarm clock rings, she can almost imagine that she’s back in their first dorm as trainees, in that tiny basement flat without windows or real doors, or even proper room for a bed. She can almost feel the distant sounds of Sunhwa in the kitchen, earliest riser despite being the _maknae_ , and feel Hyosung’s panting breaths from just a few centimetres away and Jieun ready to fall off the huge mattress spread across the room for the four of them, the palpable presence of her loved ones. 

They’d used to cuddle together, the four of them, when it was particularly cold. They’d tried to not to, when they’d initially started out as trainees, propriety had stopped them, but eventually practicality had won out. They hadn’t been able to afford heating, so their bodyheat and thick blankets had substituted. Their hair got in each others’ faces, they couldn’t escape the strength of Sunhwa’s too-flowery perfume, nor Hyosung’s sweaty back, and they often moved too much in the night for it to be the most comfortable. They’d woken up, numerous mornings, complaining of back ache and berating each other for night-time actions.

Still. Hana had never once had a nightmare inside that bed.

It’s easy to pretend that now in the soft haze of morning, in the soft comfort of her bed, in the way she is wedged against the edge of her duvet, that the warmth of Jieun is pressed into her side and Hyosung and Sunhwa are close by. 

But the illusion fades as she wakes up more, and it is just Hana, in a too big apartment, alone. 

With a low exhale, Hana rolls out of her comfortable blankets, vaguely half-sleepy and unsettled from the memories of the past, pressing in around her. The time on her phone reads 9:23am, a little earlier than she usually likes to wake up, but after a moment or two, Hana pulls herself out of bed anyway. Ayo and Poyo are doing something loud in the living room and the problem with pets, no matter how cute, is that constant supervision is recommended. Time to walk them, so they can pee.

It’s a thankless job, but it’s a routine, and it’s easy enough to shuffle into a hoodie, leggings and boots, before dragging the two overly enthusiastic puppies outside, in to the grey streets of Seoul. Like the whip of hair across her face, the cold breeze wakes her, and as she slowly meanders where her dogs take her, it’s easy to get lost in an empty haze.

Normal. Easy. Unoccupied. _Free_ , if her idol friends are to be believed. But right now, she is empty. 

Not for the first time, she can’t help but wonder if this is what she had sacrificed so much for. If this emptiness is what she signed up for, if this lack of engagement in her world was what she signed up for. 

It had seemed easier, she muses, as Ayo and Poyo nudge around her feet, back when there had been four of them together, cooped up together in the same space. It had been tiring, they had shouted at each other frequently, and gotten mad with each other, and long silences had abounded in the nights, when they were devoid of words to say to each other, but at the end of a long practise, sweat trickling down their backs, and the shouts of the unsatisfied dance instructor’s words ringing in their ears, they had been able to exchange looks and _understand_ each other, understand the way that the world around them settled. They were dolls that would dance, and sing, for that briefest glimpse of the audience yearning to see them, to love them, to be them. They had been shallow dolls, but at least they had been shallow dolls _together_. Now?

Hana smiles, bitterly, tugging at the strings of her hoodie. There are few pedestrians on the street, in this neighbourhood, and she is alone in the street, only her and her dogs, as she waits, and waits and waits for something to change. 

A car flashes by and in its windows, she sees her static face, the cheeklifts and jaw shaving obvious to anybody who was looking, and almost imagines Jieun, Hyosung, and Sunhwa around her. The car zooms away, leaving a cold breeze in its wake, and Hana is pulled from the moment. Ayo barks, impatiently, and Hana lets him pull her forward. 

-

Back in her kitchen, a bowl of cereal in her lap, Hana feels a little more human, a little less likely to get lost in dreams forever. She sends off a text to one of her boytoy-rappers about grabbing lunch, and while waiting for a response, scrolls through her instagram feed, feet propped on her table casually. There are a lot of fan comments, in languages she doesn’t know, or languages she can barely read, but she makes sure to like a lot of them anyway, smiling at the brief twinges of happiness from their clear enthusiasm and love. It’s been three years since Secret have had a comeback as a whole, and yet they’re still here. Still commenting on her instagram, despite everything. 

It means something. Maybe. 

One scroll down, there’s a picture on her feed of Jieun, in what was clearly an airport lounge, and Hana frowns, straightening a little. Jieun had gone somewhere? 

Immediately, she flicks to the TS website, scrolling to find the calendar inbetween all of the loud, colourful posters for B.A.P’s Japan tour. And sure enough, yesterday Jieun had flown from Gimpo to Shanghai, for a mini fansign sponsored by Beauty Plus. Hana blinks, and checks her kakaotalk, slowly. There are five messages from Kasper, what looks like a spam of emojis from her groupchat with Rainbow, and a couple of texts from her younger cousin. No messages from Hyosung _or_ Jieun.

There’s a slow sinking sensation in her chest, as she turns back to instagram, confronted once more by the cute picture that Jieun has taken. As ever, her hair is perfectly curled, her lips pouty and her eyes wide, even with the too-big beanie perched on her head, and what looked like the sweetest, most disgusting cup of coffee in hand ever, but it was so quintessentially Jieun-before-a-flight that it felt painfully nostalgic. And well. Just plain painful. 

Some friendship, if she finds out where Jieun’s going from their _official website_ instead of from her supposed best friend. Hana swallows heavily, shuts her eyes and breaths. 

This was to be expected. It doesn’t mean it’s any less painful, but well. It’s always been Hana’s fate to stand still, while everybody else grows and changes around her, like a bamboo forest around a rock. A sour mood slowly building up in her chest, Hana puts her phone down with a loud ‘thud’, and goes to wash up her dishes, hands a little too slow and solid.

Perhaps it’s a stupid thing to dwell on. Childish, petty, unrelenting, all of the insults that have been laid upon her several times over her career. But she can’t help but feel that distance in this case, doesn’t make the heart grow fonder, just makes people forget and grow bitter. Still, Hana had thought the nights they’d spent together, curled up together in bed whispering their dreams and hopes and fears would have been worth more than this, worth more than the awkward silence that exists between meetings and the too-talkative days when they do have group schedules, when there is too much to say and too much to catch up on, in a way that would never have been possible in the past.

They had been close. 

Jieun’s face flashes in her mind, void of makeup, as they had been that night, in front of the karaoke bar, fingers clenched tightly around each other’s arms in the shivering cold. How stricken she’d been, how confused and lost and worried, as they’d stared into each other’s eyes. How despite everything, they had been friends then, standing on a tiny sheet of ice together, separated by only a few, teetering steps.

And then Hana had ran and not looked back, not until it was too far away to see anything except Jieun’s figure walking in the opposite direction. 

She has to pause over her the sink, for a long, slow moment, feeling her veins slow freeze, one by one. Then, Ayo barks, butting his head against her leg, chew toy in his slobbery mouth, and Hana has to forget, if only to occupy herself with something that actually wants and needs her. 

-

The thing about Jieun and Hana was that they were completely unlike their stage personalities. Most people thought that Hana was cold and cool and unapproachable as the rapper of the group, and that Jieun was sweet and shy and small, as frail-voiced main singer. But Jieun was the bravest of them all, unafraid to reach forward to animals and spiders, unafraid to embrace the world wholeheartedly, a sort of courage that none of Secret really had instinctively. 

Hyosung trained herself into it, with self-help books and line-a-day journals and ginseng teas that were supposed to make you more confident. Sunhwa had ignored her fear during the day, if only to have it consume her during the night, where she curled up and shivered and quavered with the force of her nightmares, a fear never once showing on her face during the day when her stupid paper-doll smiles consumed her face. 

And Hana remained, consummately, _afraid_ and unabashedly so, despite her brash, confident, talkative personality on TV. It was easy to fake it for the screen, in the end, but it would never hide that she had been afraid for a long time. 

That was at least one part of why they were HanaAndJieun. Jieun was her real confidence, was the one who pushed her out with subtle jabs to Hana’s waist, the one who made Hana push forward for something better, something _more_. But it wasn’t just that Hana was the one who helped hold Jieun back from the brink, and Jieun pushed her towards the bridge. That relationship was only one part of HanaAndJieun, a unit of same-age friends, of girls considered too chubby to be idols, of girls not good enough at dancing, of girls too brash and too shy, of girls struggling with life and criticism and what it meant to be human. They were alike and not alike all at once, and that was why Hana knew that Jieun was just right. 

But that had been years ago.

Now they are Hana and _Song Jieun, TS’s main soloist_. Both because of her own cowardice, and because of circumstances drawing them apart. 

If Hana says that she isn’t bitter, it’s actually a fucking lie. 

-

Sunhwa had been the first to leave their dorms, of course, but they weren’t really allowed to talk or think much about Sunhwa anymore, by company regulation. So if they’re thinking about it in an officially approved way, _Hana_ had left first. Funny, because she’s probably feeling the worst about this whole thing. It had been the bravest thing she’d ever done at the time, taking the decision to rent out something by herself and leave behind their warm laughter together and Sunhwa's sleep-talking and Hyosung's messiness and Jieun's too-intimate hugs, but now she can’t help but wonder if it had been cowardice. 

It had been an attempt at independence, a precursor to what she’d hope would be a nice solo career, to move into a small apartment, enough room for herself and Ayo and her keyboard, the last member to get a solo career, but one that would be deserved, after the generally positive reception of Secret Summer. 

Like anything in Hana’s life would have been that simple.

In general, things had been fucked up since their car accident, and Hana still wasn’t sure if anything was ever going to go back to how it had been before then, if they would ever regain their lustre and popularity and rising fame. Maybe people knew Hyosung’s name now, from her constant promotions and variety show promotions and her beautiful, athletic body. And maybe people knew Han Sunhwa, rising actress and pretty model of every magazine cover. And maybe people knew Song Jieun, the emo quirky singer from TS with a voice like an angel. But people didn’t remember Jung Hana or Zinger, the rapper with great thighs. They just didn’t know her, and at this rate, they never would. 

With a slight groan, Hana’s head hits against her keyboard. She spends a lot of time in the studio nowadays, by herself. Or, on the rare occasions she can drag herself out of her room, to the pulsing, throbbing strobelights of the club, a newbie rapper joins her, or at least: those who are willing to work on a song before asking for more than just a few teasing kisses and a blowjob. 

It’s maybe a little manipulative, to string young barely-of-age boys along like this, but Hana’s not gained anything by playing nice. She’s done everything that people have asked of her, and it has failed, spectacularly. There is no way to gain anything now, other than to fight for it, and Hana is ready. She’s managed to gain three tracks that Sleepy thinks are seriously impressive from her sessions with rappers who are too wrapped up in her thighs, butt and face to think about what she’s actually saying. 

A shame. 

Hana taps against the keyboard listlessly, at the lyrics that never quite seem to be as fire as she wanted them to be.

She’d written all of her own lyrics for her rap in the past, putting her up in second place for writing credits in the idol industry, after only Miryo, who is ten years older than her. But it’s harder and harder to write lyrics about herself and her greatness, when she feels so hollow most of the time. It had been easy to write lyrics gassing herself up before the accident, back when their trajectory to fame had only seemed like it would soar, when they were still well-liked and had a large, noticeable fanbase. But now it feels like ashes and lies in her mouth, and her lyrics are sadder than even Talk That had managed to be. 

Pulling at the edges of her short hair. Hana reaches for her phone, at just 49% battery and grimaces. She’ll have to go home soon, if only to charge it, and that makes her annoyed. But still, she goes to her kakaotalk and opens up her chatlist.

It’s not a large chat-list: there aren’t many people in the show business who still really like interacting her _that_ much, even if they had once been her close friends. It says a lot about the world as a whole, but at least one person still talks to her, even if she refuses to make it public.

The phone rings five times, before it finally connects, to a lazy drawl and slightly too-loud laugh. “Hana-unnie, you know I’m in America right now, don’t you?” 

“Lee Chaerin.” Hana complains, flopping back in her chair, pressing her fingernails into the firm leather, “How do you write songs?”

Chaerin just giggles, having heard this very question from Hana on many occasions. At first, when they’d awkwardly talked backstage, the force of their shared history stilling their tongues in their mouths, she’d used to answer Hana sincerely. But now, Chaerin doesn’t take t seriously at all, in a way that has somewhat become their _thing_ , now that they were outside of the dance academy and not collectively dying about choreo and flexibility. “Unnie, to write a song,” she says, very solemnly, “You have to be able to flip a coin and have it hit heads five times in a row. That’s when you know you’ve been blessed by the rap gods.”

Hana snickers, unable to keep her straight face, and soon both of them are laughing, loose and easy across the phone. “What are you doing right now, Chaerin-ah?” she asks, gently, as their giggles peter off into the slow interconnection of the wide world. 

Chaerin hums, barely coherent. “Supposedly, I’m writing as well.” There’s a melancholy to her voice, the same melancholy she gets after three or four drinks, “But you know how it goes.”

Hana just makes a noise in agreement, and draws a line in the table, feeling the ragged, uncomfortable sensation of her nail scraping against something too rough for it. Once, she’d been jealous of Chaerin, for having all the chances she didn’t. But now they’re in much the same position, being told to wait for something that may or may not happen, by the men on top. Still, Chaerin still has it better, in America, amongst so many good artists. Chaerin had always been more proactive than Hana had, though, and had had the success of her company to boost her.

“When will they let us write and perform?” asks Hana lowly, her voice dipping lower and more slurred, in response to Chaerin’s own looser tones. “It’s not like they lose anything from it.” 

“They lose their fucking bastard pride if we do their job better than them.” Chaerin says, fiercely and Hana can almost see her snarling into the phone across the line, “And unnie, they treasure their pride more than anything, these producers and CEOs, who only see money and reputation. If they ever loved music, that’s all gone, in favour of something more petty.”

Hana just scoffs, with a low sigh. Truthfully, there’s not much to envy of 2NE1, not now, as their brand crumbles around them and their fans are left with distress and unanswered questions. It’s nothing Secret hasn’t already gone through, but it’s almost sadder, because 2NE1 had managed to reach the top, and now, it seemed ever further away for them. Hana and Chaerin were both fucked by their management, and their youngest members had left for something better: and neither of them have the sort of energy left to assign blame to anybody anymore.

“You’ll do well, Chaerin-ah.” Hana reassures. “You and me, both. It’ll come for us soon. They’ll understand us soon.”

“Will they?” Chaerin asks, and there’s a long silence, where they both just breathe and wonder, in the overwhelming, crushing weight of barely being able to breathe, the gulping, squeezing, buckling sensation of being forced to confront a question you dislike. 

Across from her, the cursor for Cubase blinks, almost accusingly, and Hana’s stomach sinks a little. False platitudes can only go so far against the overwhelming reality. 

“I’m sorry, unnie.” Chaerin coughs, gently, “I always get like this when I’m hungover. Sorry. I shouldn’t write songs when I’m like this, but.” She trails off awkwardly, and Hana can hear the humming of a computer in the background. 

“Sometimes the sadness works.” Hana agrees, gently. “But I’d sleep the hangover off, if I were you.” 

Chaerin just laughs, and it is loud and a little raw and it says everything about what she thinks about Hana’s suggestion. “Can you sleep off heartbreak?” asks Chaerin, a little more numbly. And—well Hana knows she doesn’t mean to ask that. Chaerin is not the sort of woman who gets heartbroken by men or women. Chaerin is unfailingly independent, and her heartbreak is the sort of heartbreak of being parted from the stage, from her family, from the studio, from failing to reach her goals as 2NE1. She knows it’s not heartbreak in the same way, but yet, Hana’s heart freezes, just a little, and her voice catches in her throat, too light and airy to be her voice. 

“No. No, you can’t. It sits in all of your empty crevasses, so sleep only brings it closer to you.” 

Chaerin hums, low and tired. “That’s a good lyric. Goodnight unnie.” She hangs up abruptly, and Hana blinks, startled for a moment, from the whiplash. But that’s much of what Chaerin is always like, unfailingly blunt and honest in these quiet spaces away from cameras. 

It’s nothing much like the rest of Secret, but then Secret aren’t really wellknown for _sincerity_ and point-blank honesty. Hyosung is cheeky teasing and indignant protests, while still being as polite as possible, too unwilling to rock the boat after two failed attempts at idolhood. Sunhwa is all about pretense, hiding herself behind layers and layers, until she can even lie to herself convincingly. And Jieun. Well. Jieun is honest, but unfailingly kind and considerate, in a way that few others can ever replicate. 

No, Chaerin is not much like Secret at all. 

Hana pulls a face at Cubase and momentarily considers deleting the track altogether, letting the unfinished melodies and rhythms be swallowed by the abysses of the motherboard, letting the lyrics she’s barely written, disintegrate into tiny little plastic bits. But she can’t do it, even if she wants, even if the yearning pulls at her limbs, like desperation given form. 

Instead, Jieun’s pretty face flashes up in her face and Hana feels the tug subside and lets a smile touch her face, remembering the way they’d spent time together in the studios. 

It had been the advent of their first major album, when Hana had spent more time inside the studio than out of it, and Jieun had often accompanied her, even when there was no need to record.

 _Hana-sshi, what’s this? Hana-ssi, what are you doing? Waaaaahhh, Hana, so cool. Hana-nim, explain this to me. Zinger-sshi, you’re so cool._ It had practically been a running commentary in her ears, Jieun uncharacteristically filling in the silence, when it was usually Hana that was the talkative one. Annoying but somehow touching too, that Jieun came all the way out to the studio.

It had helped that Jieun always brought food with her, a large box of chicken for them to share, as she leant over Hana’s shoulder and pressed her lips dangerously close to Hana’s neck, as she whined about Hana not writing enough lines for herself, and giving too many to Sunhwa. It had been comfortable, Jieun’s long limbs over Hana’s, bickering in their small studio, close same-age friends. It had been something Hana cherished. 

Cherishes even now, just the memory of Jieun warming her gut in the here and now.

_Like snow of a spring mountain, you melt away from my sight,_  
Were that I had not been foolish  
you would still be here,  
but alas  
we were young and I was blinded by what was not  
and heartbreak sits in the crevasses of your body  
until you succumb to it 

Hana grimaces at the screen, and exhales, loudly and with annoyance. Cliche. Trite. Overused. Back to the drawing board. 

She doesn’t delete the words though. 

-

There’s a silence in Hana’s bones, that resonates through her entire being, that only physical exertion can remedy, and even that is only for a short period of time. For a while, when she contorts herself into complex stretches for pilates, feels the burn of her muscles and the stretch of her tendons, and the sweat running down her back and knees and armpits, she can feel full, can feel like that queer sensation of not quite being right can dissipate. 

It's one of the reason Hana likes dance, even if she's not as good as Hyosung is, one of the reasons she's always working together with the PLAY dancers in the studio when she gets time, why she'd even wanted to be an idol, even after her mother had warned her against it. Exercise has always made Hana feel good.

It's not that way for everybody. Sunhwa absolutely hates it, prefers to starve herself than work out, with an absolute disdain for looking the sort of disheveled that everybody ends up being at the gym. She'd always thought that Hyosung and Hana's sweat was not to be tolerated. Maybe it was one of the reasons she'd moved out, but Hyosung and Hana’s sweat was more like something that broke the back of the camel, than anything else, if they're all being honest.

Hana holds the long stretch, that pulls her legs apart and her core taut, feeling the sweat drop down her arms and down her long nose. She doesn't touch it. Sometimes, when she's rubbing her face too vigourously in the bathroom with her exfoliator, it feels like her plastic surgery nose will move aside or come apart, splinter and disintegrate under her touch, leaving a gaping cavity of nothingness in the centre of her face. Maybe she worries that it will look better that way. So Hana just doesn't touch it. It helps with skincare, in any case, that unsettling sensation in your bones that you shouldn't touch your face. No oil and grease anywhere. Still. It's perturbing. 

(sometimes she wonders what about her old face was so lacking, but she looks at herself in the mirror and sees something more doll-like and pretty and thinks that is has to be worth it in some way. maybe this way, her company will think about giving her activities. jieun certainly smiles at her more like this, with a button-nose and sculpted cheeks and hana doesn't know how to feel about it.)

The stretch is good and intense pain burns through her, and for a moment, a real moment, Hana feels alive, and is able to think about Jieun more, without it hurting quite so much. The pain sort of cancels each other in, a weird wave collision, like she'd vaguely learnt about in school, and Jieun's baby-face and pretty voice is able to sit in her head, without quite so much headsplitting agony. 

The thing that hurts the most about the Bobby Doll promotions, is that much of the idea is Hana's. Not the main song: Secret rarely ever get input into their main song, let it be lyrics or concept. But Hana had been brainstorming ideas for much of the lyrics on Off The Record with Jieun, back in the aftermath of I'm In Love, when it had seemed that they were getting their groove back as a group. About love being eternal, about staying like this for a little longer, of that slow build-up towards something truly great: it had been her feelings about many things in life at the time, and it had been easy to turn it romantic, especially when Jieun had been smiling like that at her side. It had been fun and lively as song discussions went, and although none of Hana's ideas had made the cut for Jieun's 25 album, they hadn't been especially sore about it because 25 had been a seamless promotion and they'd still been talking and Sunhwa had been doing well--

Hana coughed, as she twisted over and moved into a stretch on her back. The problem had been after B.A.P left and when Sonamoo debuted, and the re-evaluation of their lives they'd all taken then. They'd all been unhappy with something or another under their company. Not enough comebacks, not enough promotions, the failures after the accident: and now there was a way out. They could have followed B.A.P out or they could have used B.A.P's walking out as a leverage for their own good behaviour, or they could do nothing. 

That had been where things had gone wrong, when the four of them had gotten together for once, out of their schedules of filmings, photoshoots, variety shows and recordings, to sit down inside Hana's parent's house in early November and decide what they were going to do, before TS could come to them and force a decision upon them. Hyosung, by virtue of her on-off pseudo-relationship with Himchan had known it was happening, before it was really announced anywhere, which had given them time to do things. 

Sunhwa had wanted to leave. Idol life was less and less attractive when she had a blossoming acting career that TS weren't properly supporting. Hana had wanted to use B.A.P's departure as leverage to get better things for them. Jieun wanted the same, wanted more creative freedom to go darker with her own songs, and a little less sexual with everything. But Hyosung had wanted to stay with TS and reap the benefits of getting comebacks without B.A.P taking all of the company's resources and investments. 

They'd argued, they'd fought with Hyosung with Sunhwa, trying to make her see sense in the onslaught of lawsuits that boygroups seemed to be filing against their companies, try to make everybody see sense, and like usual, it had been HanaAndJieun against everybody else. 

_Don't you see, B.A.P, those EXO members, Shinhwa, they're men! They have fans that will follow them like that and people that will take them. We're women, who will support us again? We have to fight for our career as a group, try and leverage for more, because they're all they have left, other than Sleepy-oppa._

_Why should I stay in a place like this, when they refuse to do anything for us? Hana-unnie, you haven't had any activities in ages, and I only get to do half of the things that companies want to offer me! I could be so much bigger, we could all be doing so much better under anybody else._

_Nobody's better, Sunhwa, everywhere's the same, all of the women suffer if they aren't young. Why rock the boat: you know that sexism will literally murder us? There's nothing we can do, we might as well stay here and prove ourselves to be the better option to B.A.P, so they choose to invest in us instead._

_How can we do anything if we don't fight a little bit, Hyosung-unnie? Gain-sunbaenim, Hyuna-sunbaenim...there are older women managing to do okay for themselves, we have to assert ourselves._

_It's easy for you to say, Jieun, the company actually cares about you, they only care for my body._

On and on, in circular spirals of thoughts, over and over. The same arguments, getting less and less coherent and more and more insulting, until they were all using their weakest points against each other, using the weak points they'd learnt over five years of promotion together against each other. Until they hit too low, Sunhwa slapped Hyosung and stormed out in a fit of pure fury, and Hyosung too, had been unable to do anything except get up and walk out, suppressed fury under her veins. 

And it had been HanaAndJieun, except Jieun's arguments had been corroding and eroding and she looked like she wanted to cry, torn between her three members. 

_I don't know anymore, Hana._

And Hana had never seen Jieun so scared as she had seen her then. If Hana hadn't also been scared, if she hadn't been faking it so badly, she would have kissed her, would have held her hand, would have told her they'd be okay if they stuck together. Instead, she'd just pressed her lips together and filled with the anger from fighting two of her closest friends, who were already starting to drift away from her, the effect of fame and success hitting them after a dry spell of pain, and told Jieun to get out, if she was going to be like that. 

Hana closes her eyes, in low pain and her balance crumbles, after just a couple of seconds. 

She lays there on the floor for a little while, feeling the ache of her bones on her wooden floor, and the low emptiness of her bones return to her, as her sweat dries, and wishes only that she could turn back time. 

-

Sometimes, before she goes to bed, she scrolls through their fansite pictures from back when they'd been closer. It's a sort of masochistic torture, to look back at Jieun the way she remembers Jieun, with the chubby cheeks, and the soft nose, and her baby-fat. The way they'd curled together in the car and messed with each other in breaks and teased each other on camera. 

Sometimes, when looking at fansign pics, she can spot their mouths frozen in a particular position and can almost feel the stupid inside jokes on her tongue, about that one squeaky piano chair their singing instructor always managed to sit on, despite how much she seemed to hate it, about that one time they'd spotted EXO's Suho at the same eyebrow parlour as them, and he'd gone bright red from shame and barely-hidden ogling, the three-tiered cake given to them by fans on Jieun's birthday with flavours that every member hated, which they'd fed to Sonamoo instead and gained their eternal love, the day they'd rescued that cat from a tree and abandoned it in B.A.P's dorm and forgot to tell them, until two days later, when the boy group had practically adopted it anyway. 

Silly things. Stupid things. Together things. 

It's weird, looking back at that frozen snapshot of time, because Jieun is nothing like that anymore. Her jaw has been shaved and her eyes widened. Her hair straightened and her smiles faker, despite becoming a better actress. Jieun has kept moving, and Hana cannot bear to look at it, most of the time.

The sun always has been too bright to gaze at for too long. 

Those nights are when she dreams of what could have been. It's silly to dream, because Hana would never have met Jieun, had they not both been idols, looking with desperation for some company to take them. Yet her dream is always when they aren't idols, holding hands and walking through Seoul's markets, picking cabbages and cracking stupid jokes, Jieun nudging Hana to go and try new foods and ask strangers how to find directions through Hongdae. Both of them coming home and giggling in the kitchen. It always ends with chaste kisses, on Jieun's little button nose, and Jieun teasing Hana about how her nose always gets in the way of kissing, but pressing her against the counter and doing it anyway. 

Those dreams make her wake up aching in places she did not know she could ache, feeling hollow and empty, and more like a little plastic doll than she's ever felt before. Those are the days she has to get up and walk Ayo and Poyo for two or three miles, something they all need. Those are the days Hana loses herself in dreams of the past and drowns her sorrows in ice-cream. 

She has other dreams though, more like what dreams of your lover are supposed to be, when written in romance novels. Dreams of Jieun's hair over her back, thighs curled over each other, grinding gently together, in a mixture of wet, lurid kisses. Skin against skin, Jieun bending Hana down against a bed, Hana pressing Jieun against a wall, peeling lingerie off their tight, pretty bodies, whispered i-love-yous inbetween moans of satisfaction. 

From those, Hana wakes up empty, and paints. They're not good paintings, but something about the nitty-gritty precision of trying to get the colours of a painting right, help stave off thoughts of getting into the shower and fingering herself until she actually comes. Somehow, it doesn't feel right to think about snogging Jieun when they can barely even hold a real conversation anymore. 

The worst dreams are the dreams of something different altogether, of Jieun and her running and running through an empty deserted city, hair flying over their shoulders, hands clasped, until Hana finds that Jieun's hand isn't in her anymore, and Hana tries to find her again, only in time to watch her get hit by the only car, in the middle of a large crosswalk. 

Those are the dreams she wakes up crying from, the crunch of Jieun's body and her accusing, silent eyes still staring Hana down, past her dream-death, into the real world.

Her idol friends, the ones who are still active are always jealous of Hana's ability to be able to sleep as long as she wishes. But Hana doesn't know how to tell them how even sleep has betrayed her, and how the long endless days of tedium and guilt and frustration coil together to make something dangerous, something lurking, something waiting in the shadows to slit her throat when she least expects it. 

-

Romance in the idol world confuses her sometimes. It's messy and complex, by the very nature of their profession and their pretense that idols are merely oversized, singing barbie dolls. She thinks she'd understand fan reactions to idols and romance better if it was just a general flat-out ban on dating, if they saw idols as theirs, and theirs alone. But the part that confuses Hana sometimes in the idea of shipping. She knows that people ship inter-group relationships: sometimes platonically, sometimes not. 

Nobody in the idol industry is a stranger to fanfictions of themselves having sex somewhere, especially not male idols. Hyosung had always delighted in Himchan's disgruntled sighs about how he had stumbled upon a story where he and Jongup and Yongguk all had sex in rapid succession. Hana finds that funny to an extent, and most of them do, when it's a far-removed idea. The one that makes her a little more confused are the imagined romances between male and female idols. Those people desperately hoping that G-Dragon and Dara were dating, those who thought Victoria and Nickhun were still secretly dating despite WGM being over, those who hoped viciously that Gain and Jokwon were more than just good industry friends. The ones who think that Bang Yongguk and Jieun are dating or should be dating. 

She doesn't understand those, not when the backlash of idols like EXO's Kai and f(x)'s Krystal dating was met with such vicious hate. She doesn't understand it, not at all.

It preys on her sometimes, though, which is stupid, because she knows that Jieun holds no especial affection towards Yongguk. Jieun likes funny, loud people who aren't all that attractive, and Yongguk is neither, more known for his silence in person, and thoughtfulness in his lyrics, not to mention his crazy good looks. People just ship the two artists together because of Going Crazy and the fact that they are the same age.

People tend to forget that Hana and Yongguk are the same age as well. 

In fact, when Hana thinks about it, Yongguk meets most of the checklist for her ideal man. Quiet, well-muscled, sincere, and simple. It would be easier to ship them, she supposes, if people actually cared about her. Or if she actually talked to him that much. As it is, though, Hana and Yongguk really haven't had much in common, not until after B.A.P came back from the lawsuit, glowing with fresh warmth, despite their huge failure to leave TS altogether, and especially now, that Yongguk is on break for panic disorder. 

There's something about in their solidarity together, two people who want to be working, but can't, if for very, very different reasons. It had been surprisingly easy to invite Yongguk out for dinner one time, after it had been announced to the public that he was going on break. And as Hana shifts in the bathtub, staring at the notepad balanced precariously on the rim, that has not been filled with any words, since she'd taken a seat in the now cooling water, she thinks about him again. Yongguk to Hana is ease, and comfort, and music. Yongguk sometimes feels like the essence of music, and like the essence of...well, deep thought, in general. As much as Hana loves indulging in long, bubbly baths, it also does feel like they are sucking her brain out, so she straightens up, letting the water roll off her in cascades and steps out of the tub, as the water drains.

It only takes her a couple of moments to locate her phone and towel, and as she wraps herself up, she dials him, with the same ease as the first time.

"Yongguk-ah?" she starts with, as he picks up after two rings. 

"Yeah?" he rumbles, from the other side, sounding a little like he'd just woken up. 

Hana smiles faintly, patting herself down with the hand not currently occupied. "Are you up for seafood for dinner?" 

Yongguk hums, a little indecisive. "Yeah," he says, finally, as Hana finishes drying off, "Give me fifteen, and I'll meet you outside your complex."

Fifteen minutes is probably not enough to put on a full face of makeup, but Hana agrees anyway, deciding to just loop a facemask over, and not take any selfies. She's pretty sure that Yongguk won't have the patience to take pictures of her, like her newbie rapper paramours usually do, anyway. 

Sure enough, once Hana loops a too-big scarf around her neck and clatters down the stairs, Yongguk is waiting, looking equally snug, and covered up. "Hello Hana." he says, in that placid calm tone, that puts her a little at ease. 

"Hi." she says, smiling under the facemask. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

Yongguk shakes his head as they fall into step, heading towards whatever seafood shop they see along the way. "You did, but I should have woken anyway, so it's fine." He sounds a little hoarse around the edges, and his skin is a little wan, but he looks less like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. "It's hard to keep track of time when you're alone in an apartment."

Hana hums in agreement. "Sunhwa-sshi used to be my alarm clock. Now I gotta rely on Ayo and Poyo." 

Yongguk looks a little sad, and they walk in silence for a bit. "Do you miss them though?" he asks, quietly, "Even if you don't want to be there?"

"All the time." Hana replies, quietly, tipping her head back, for just a couple of seconds. God. Even if they’d done everything wrong while she’d lived with them, been too sweaty, never left the bathroom in the way she liked, never shared the toothpaste correctly, never really worked together, she still missed them; the presence of them, the way they would trip over the furniture after having gone drinking with someone else, the way they’d curl around the kitchen in the morning. Of being there, even as she seethed a little with jealousy under her veins. Of being the person they would come home to in the end, after everything. “I don’t think that ever goes away.”

They walk silently together for a few moments, the light from the houses above them illuminating their path, and Yongguk swallows, his planed face tilting up to the stars. "It was easier when I was promoting with them." He turns to Hana, smile wry, "But I also know it was bad for me?"

Hana hums. "I don't know." she says, quietly, thinking back to the thick bundle of notebooks under her bed, the notebooks filled with every activity they'd taken as a group together, and the special dates of when Hyosung and Jieun debuted with their new songs and went to the station, and all of the times and good and bad publicity they received, that she prints and sticks to the musty pages. "We were bad together. But I was never the one being hurt, so I wouldn't be able to appreciate that as much." Her head ducks, a little with a shame she doesn't quite understand even to now.

Yongguk's arm reaches over her shoulder, in a brief, comforting embrace. "There are hurts that are deeper than what we can immediately conceptualize." His grumbly voice is comforting, in that way that makes Hana feel a little better about everything. "Sunhwa's hurt was obvious to anybody, and is so valid. But don't discount your own pain, your loneliness is not made invalid."

"Would you be angry, if I said that we hated you for leaving and giving us the chance to splinter too?" asks Hana, quietly.

Yongguk is silent for a long while, as they reach the storefront. "I am." Yongguk says, simply, in that voice devoid of most emotion except the 'there-ness' of his words, "But I understand it too. I just wish for you consider: it was not necessary to splinter."

Hana laughs, low and bitter, the words hitting a little lower in her gut than she would have liked. "It was inevitable." And that ends the discussion, as they take a seat and order some hot gojaetaeng and soju together. 

Yongguk's not the best drinking partner, but it's easy to exchange some smalltalk, her asking him about how Natasha's projects are going, he replying with quiet comments about seeing her artwork and talking about some artists they've both been into. Safe, removed, easy to eat with. It's pleasant, all things considered, but it's still sort of hollow because of Hana pulling away from it, and they both know it. 

The lapse into a silence, as Hana finishes her soup, and Yongguk is still delicately sipping on it. His phone is on the table, buzzing occasionally with notifications from somebody. He gives them occasional glances, and his face looks heavy and a little wistful. Hana catches a hint of a character that looks like 'hyun' and can't help but feel a heaviness in her heart. 

Running her finger over the rim of the soju bottle, Hana frowns a little. "How do you tell somebody you miss them when you're the first to push them away? When you messed up?"

"You could start with an apology." From anybody else, it would sound sarcastic and would be greeted with annoyance, but Yongguk sounds entirely serious. At her incredulous expression, he gives her a hard stare. "If you're aware you did something wrong, you have to make amends. Nobody is going to believe you if you won't apologize in words and then make actions to show your sincerity." 

"Mr. Big Gracious Leader." she teases, and it's a little petulant and not entirely serious, but it pulls a tired, weary smile over his face.

"That's the problem." he says, looking away and Hana instantly feels bad. He’s on break for stress, for panic disorder, and here she is, making it worse. He’s the sunbae, even if she isn’t old enough to be his noona, it’s her duty to comfort him. She reaches out instantly and puts a hand over his, stroking her fingers over his knuckles, biting down on her lips.

"Hyosung-unnie used to have little revelations every now and then, that she was the leader, that she was kind of in charge of everything about us and our reputation. And you know, she was bad at keeping her mouth shut at the right point in the past, and she would stress over all the negative articles at night. You could practically hear the cogs turning in her head, it was cute, curled up in her bed." Hana teases, feeling a fond smile spread over her face, "I'd always say to her, unnie, you're only the boss of me as long as you let yourself be. People can rise to become themselves with you and without you. We're indispensable to a point, but the point of us being ourselves, being unique, individual, is that we can keep moving fine without you. People will rise to the occasion, you don't _have_ to be there and taking charge of everything for things to go relatively smoothly. It was true then and it's true now."

Yongguk's face is pale, but as they sit in silence, staring at each other, the phone buzzes, and this time, she can clearly see the phone displaying a message from Youngjae. His shoulders sag, and he exhales, "You should take your own advice."

"The problem isn't that they can’t cope without me, it's that I can't cope without them." Hana says, automatically, before pausing, as her words really register. Because that's the truth. She floats here, in a weird sort of limbo, and they are continuing just fine, without her, just fine into the music world, and she is _alone_. They have continued to walk forward, and even Jieun, who would always wait for Hana when Hana's heels were too annoying, has moved on, and she is still here. 

It's like she's been carrying heavy lead in the bottom of her stomach, in a fanny pack, that she had only just recognized was strapped to her, because she suddenly feels like she is tied to this chair, with the force of this realization. She is stuck and they have moved, and there is nothing she can do about that, because it is her fault that Jieun will never smile at her and call her a slowpoke again. 

Yongguk gently turns their hands over, and clasps her, and the motion startles Hana way from it, and she forces herself back to the present. It has been the truth for more than a year, she _cannot_ get paralyzed by it now. "Come on." he says, quietly, "I'll pay."

"No--"

"Please." Yongguk insists, gently, and Hana acquiesces, as he swipes his card and they emerge again, back into the main street in silence, hand still over hers, gentle and firm, and they walk together, back home. 

-

She dreams sometimes of the car accident. She knows that technically she passed out upon impact, the force of her ribs being broken and her skull hitting the side of the car door enough to knock her out, but when she dreams, she’s awake. She’s strapped to her seat, watching as the car teeters on the edge of the road, watches as Hyosung unstraps Sunhwa first and pushes her out of the open side, where their poor sleep-deprived manager is attempting to recover, having pulled himself out first. Sees Jieun on the other side of her, head lolling, momentarily passed out, face too close to the glass, and legs skewed at an awkward angles. Watches as Hyosung reaches for her. Watches as Hyosung, despite her own injured leg, pulls Jieun out of the car, as Jieun sobs and screams, blood pouring down a few cuts on her forehead. Waits. Waits. But instead of their manager and Jieun realizing she’s not there and diving in to save her, nothing happens. She waits. Waits. Waits. 

She is paralyzed. Not sure if she can move, not sure if she wants to, as the sounds of their voices fade away slowly, until she is left in the cold, and the dark, the car creaking, and lurking ominously around her. The glass stilling and freezing, the last of the blood dripping away and down, but the ringing and awful cacophony in her head not halting. 

But worse than any of that, worse than the slow, sharp, detestable starbursts of colours, that are her cracked and fractured ribs, worse than the chilly cold that numbs her veins and toes, is the piercing realization that she is not necessary, and not required and could have just as easily have died in the car accident, and done just as much with her life. 

Hell, Hana muses, as she wakes up surprisingly calm in her bed, a cold sweat running down her back; if she’d died, Secret might have even done better, in the same way that Ladies Code have done better.

There’s something rather cold about that statement, and Hana doesn’t know if it’s the fact that she’s reacting to this truth so calmly that unnerves her, or the fact’s veracity that unnerves her. 

-

Hyosung calls her out, near the middle of December, something that’s a little baffling, but something that Hana accepts without question, because she hasn’t seen her unnie in a month or so, not since they filmed the Secret Anniversary video. This time, Hyosung takes her to a cat cafe, and orders them both lattes.

Hana knows that something is up, when Hyosung doesn’t immediately go to coo at the cats, ignoring everybody else in the nearby vicinity like usual. Instead, Hyosung sits right at the edge table, and absentmindedly strokes at the cat who’s settled on top, and that’s when Hana knows something is wrong. 

“Hana-yah,” Hyosung murmurs, her face worried and just a little too pale. “Himchannie….he was talking with the managers and they haven’t got paid yet.” 

Hana blinks, low and slow. “Again?” she asks, quietly. It had happened once before, back near the end of B.A.P’s lawsuit, as both B.A.P and TS had started to run out of money, back when everything had become so dire for her, for the groups inside TS as a whole. And at that time, it had been easily fixed by B.A.P’s return, with better deals, but now…

“Yeah.” Hyosung says, firmly, eyes serious in that way that most people aren’t capable of understanding or believing from Hyosung, “And the managers are really started to get angry this time around, Hana-yah. Things are really going poorly….Jisoo-unnie said that she and Hyungwon-oppa want to file a lawsuit with the labour department.”

Hana blinks, slowly, once, twice. No wonder Hyosung is so worried. “The _managers_ are? But….unnie, with what money?” 

Hyosung’s smile is grim and unamused. “They don’t have enough on their own, obviously, but if we all make a coalition, all of us and the managers, to try and make a change for something better. The Sonamoo girls are all for it, though B.A.P are divided on whether or not to go forward with it. Sleepy-oppa thinks it’s a good idea--”

“You spoke with Sleepy-oppa before you talked to me?” Hana interrupts, unable to stop the words coming to her mouth, in this weird, relaxed, interim space. 

Hyosung opens her mouth and closes it, clearly not expecting Hana to say this, but Hana can’t really believe this. “Why have you changed your mind so suddenly, unnie? What happened to lying low and hoping for the best? What happened to taking advantage of the opportunities that come in the mistreatment of others? Why are you _so_ in favour of solidarity for once?” asks Hana, savagely, feeling a feeling of annoyance run through her, that they were back at this same point again, and that _now_ Hyosung was on the side of action. 

“I--”

“If you had been like this before, if you hadn’t been so _selfish_ before, we could have _done_ something before this.” Hana whispers, quietly, “B.A.P wouldn’t be so tired, you wouldn’t always be fighting with Himchan, we wouldn’t be so empty and aching, we’d have something more--”

“Don’t blame your losses and your own mistakes on _my_ need for security. I’m sorry, I should have figured this out earlier, but I didn’t. I’ve figured it out now, figured out my loyalty is with people and not a corporate entity. But it’s not my fault entirely for any of those things.” hisses Hyosung, her lips pursing together, “Your relationship with Jieun splintering cannot be blamed on anybody but _you_ , Hana-yah.”

“How do you know _anything_ about me and Jieun?” Hana snaps, and it’s vicious, the sort of fighting they haven’t done in a long time, not since they lived together. It had scared Jieun and Sunhwa on occasion, that Hyosung and Hana coldly explode at each other like this, but Hana knows it’s how they’re honest with each other, even if it’s through furious rants. It works. None of them take it too closely to their hearts. 

“I don’t need to know anything, because you can read it all right off your stupid face.” Hyosung sneers, leaning down on her elbows, “But in any case, Jieunnie told me everything.” 

Hana wishes she hadn’t been so outwardly aggressive, because something rather like a balloon deflates within her, slowly, like a tiny hole was punched into her gut. Hyosung’s face softens a little, as Hana pushed back into the chair and tugs at her blonde hair. “Hana-yah.” Hyosung says, gently, “I’m sorry.”

Hana’s smile is bland and not entirely great. “Yeah.” she says, listlessly, reaching out to the cat, who moves away from her pompously. No doubt smelling Ayo and Poyo’s fur all over her. Not even cats think she’s good enough to be with. Hell. If she thinks about, even _she_ doesn’t know if she’s good enough to be with. She sinks her head down into her hands, and breathes heavily.

A hand brushes over her shoulder, and Hyosung looks at her, biting down on her lip, half-uncertain, half-curious. “Hana-yah.” she says, finally, her grip tightening. “I think you have to examine what you want to hold onto and who you’re willing to love. What’s most important to you--”

“--you can hardly talk--”

“Yes.” Hyosung snaps, holding her other hand up in qualification. “Yes, okay, I had issues with Himchan and my relationship with him. But it’s not about us. Because I’m figuring out what I want. I want a properly funded comeback, and a group comeback and to be dating him in secret and acting more in cool dramas. Those are my goals, that’s what I’m ready and unafraid to fight for now.”

“Unafraid?” asks Hana, softly, wistfully, painfully. “How do I do that?”

Hyosung exhaled, and bites down on her lip more, worrying at a little piece of skin. It should be gross, but Hana can understand her, in that moment, in her hair limp against her back and the loose hoodie around her body, to hide her breasts and thighs, and the worry of finding herself. “I don’t know, Hana-yah. You know how I do it, I write, I think over it forever, get self-help books, rant to people. But you gotta find your own way, because you can’t let the company destroy you _and_ destroy yourself at the same time.” 

Hana blinks. It’s strangely wise. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Hyosung is three years older than her. “You grew up a lot.” Hana murmurs.

Hyosung’s smile is sad. “I wish I could say the same.” She rises, from the table, clutching her latte, much to the annoyance of the cat on the table. “I’m going to the bathroom. Let’s talk about the company after, okay? You’re with me on _that_ much.” 

Hana snorts, and drains her own latte as Hyosung heads off. The cat on the table looks at her with two golden eyes, straight and disdainful, before butting its head against her palms, inviting petting. Cautiously, Hana pets the cat, and lets her tension drain out into its fur and its mild purring. 

-

There’s something weird about getting ready for Christmas fanmeetings across Japan, something extremely strange and weird about slotting back into their preparations as a group without Sunhwa, when she’s realized that she is, essentially expendable. She doesn’t quite know how to explain it properly, as she sits in the stylist chair and lets them mess with her hair, silently taking in their praise for her body upkeep during her long break. But she would explain it perhaps, as feeling too big for her body, too big to properly fit in among the bustle of their tiny dressing rooms and the cramped cars and airplanes. And yet also too small to truly be involved in much.

It’s like cramming herself back into a box that is so different to her current shape, that she awkwardly bulges in the wrong places and feels pressure pushing down around at her from all sides. It’s the sort of feeling that gives her a little indigestion, as they start to get shuttled around across Japan, and get ready to film lots and lots of things for the fans, together.

Hana’s good at acting, and Jieun’s got better at it as well, so it’s easy to fake being friends, even if they aren’t really touching anymore, aren’t really interacting beyond what they have to. It’s strange. In those quiet moments, between the dizzying whirl of stage rehearsals and makeup and the time they go out and go to eat, Hana stops to catch a look at Jieun, just study her pretty face, study the way she’s soft like a dewy rose and absorb, with a wistful bitterness, how much lighter and freer she is now. 

Sometimes, she turns to look, and Jieun is starting back at her, quizzical expression on her face that fades away to a carefully blank expression, when they both recognize their eyecontact, quickly turning away. Embarrassment clouding their interaction for a little while longer. 

They’d started to grasp a little at their weirdness back in October, when the Secret anniversary had happened, had managed to address how strange it felt inside Hyosung’s apartment, talking about times long gone and dodging the topic of Sunhwa, by talking about stupid, small things. But it’s weirder now, because Hana isn’t really going back home. They’re staying in a hotel room. Hyosung sharing with a staff unnie, and herself with Jieun. Just like old times.

Except, amidst the awkward, stiff silence, in the hotel room, it really isn’t much like old times. Hana hovers awkwardly by the window bed, as Jieun ducks into the bathroom quickly and with a silent sigh to the ceiling, Hana prays that this will go well, that she can keep herself in check, that she can keep walking and pretending that they’re okay. 

“C-can I take the window bed?” asks Hana, immediately, as soon as Jieun comes out of the bathroom, and she knows her voice is too tense. Jieun looks her way and it’s a little too long for a simple pause, so Hana starts again, “Because you know, I don’t like the--”

“--dark at night and like to wake with the sun on schedule days.” Jieun says, quietly. “I know.” Her eyes are dark and deep and say absolutely nothing. Hana gulps, a little uncertain of her footing, now, as they look each other, but Jieun turns away first, firmly aiming her back towards Hana, as she unpacks her toiletries and skincare regime onto her bedside cabinet. 

Okay.

Hana sits down, and turns her own back to Jieun, as she unpacks her night-clothes and her small book. It’s been a long day, with lots of things. She’s taken a couple of polaroids of the fans and of their practise, and she pulls those out, to carefully paste into her book. It’s her fifth little scrapbook of Secret’s activities and it’s strange. She hasn’t filled this out in a while, but it’s nice, to know that for the next five days, she’ll be getting back into the swing of compiling this.

It makes her feel accomplished in many ways, to see their achievements and daily schedules laid out everyday. It takes a lot of time, but she can pick it up and look back over it. Understand what they’d done each day. So she doesn’t resent the little bit of extra work she has given herself. 

“You—you still fill that out?” asks Jieun, her voice small from the other side of the room and Hana turns around, feeling a little shy. Jieun’s softer like this, makeup off, hair curled up into rollers, in her thin nightie and shorts, one leg tucked under her, the other swinging off the bed, not quite touching the floor. 

“Of course.” Hana says, softly, “It’s. Well, it’s easier, now. Less shit to put in. So.” It’s suffocating, this thick distance between them, and Hana hates it, revels in it, is afraid of it. But she’s always been afraid and Jieun hasn’t, judging by how easily she can do this, reach out as if they haven’t been awkward and on the rocks for ages.

“Why do it?” Jieun asks, eyes softened, head tilting to the side. She’s gorgeous like this, and Hana aches, because a couple of years ago, Jieun wouldn’t have had to ask.

“Because it’s concrete.” Hana murmurs, playing with the sparkly paper on the cover, “Everytime I feel like I haven’t done something, I can go back and see that I did. I can see what I thought then. See how I changed, and how I haven’t and what I should hold onto.” It’s the same explanation she’d given for it the first time she’d told Secret about her project, but it’s been a long time since then. 

There’s a silence, and Hana looks up, to see Jieun’s face puffed out in a pout, that looks a little like she’s trying to not cry or scream something out. “Hana-sshi.” she says, her voice coming out finally, sad and soft, “You’ve never really understood when to hold onto the right thing. You’ll give up on other important things? But you’ll hold this? I just...I just can’t _understand_ you. I’ve been trying for so long. I just don’t get you or anything you do anymore, Hana-sshi!”

Her voice is shaky by the end of it, and her lips are doing that thing again, where they tremble outwards, like she’s trying to make her lips bigger for pictures, but before Hana can say anything, Jieun dives for her bed, curling up under the covers, head firmly hidden. If that isn’t an indication of Jieun’s state, Hana doesn’t know how else to express. With a sigh down at the book and the polaroid of herself, Hyosung and Jieun sweaty in their normal clothes, doing the sound check, Hana closes the book. She’ll write the caption tomorrow. 

-

The thing about Jieun is this; she’s beautiful, and wonderful and Hana loves her entirely, to her very essence, but she also knows in her heart of hearts that Jieun is too good for her. Too talented, too funny, too kind-hearted, too brave for Hana to pull her back. They might work beautiful as a team together, they might have great teamwork, but time apart has proved that it can so easily fall apart, that Jieun doesn’t need her. 

In the past, they might as well have been conjoined twins, but Jieun is doing just fine without her, and that’s because Jieun is a capable, wonderful woman who doesn’t need a failure like Hana holding her back, with her fears and jealousy and bitterness and inability to write anything meaningful. 

It had been better. It had been better that during the aftermath of B.A.P’s lawsuit that Hana had ran from Jieun and not burden her with the depth of her emotions, her wants, her dreams for what they could be romantically. Jieun’s type might have been _her_ , and Hana’s own type might always, ultimately, evidently be Jieun. They might make each other laugh and giggle and happier and better, but. Jieun didn’t need that to be amazing. Only Hana had needed Jieun to be whole. 

And well, Jieun still hadn’t seemed to recognize that. 

 

 

 

 

_The puffs of their breath froze in the air, escaping upwards like their dreams and hopes and wishes, acting as a beacon to the world, and Hana couldn’t help but giggle, pressing her fingers to Jieun’s round, round cheeks, flushed pink from drunkenness and too much stupid dancing. “You totally messed up B.A.P’s song! How do you mess up their song, don’t you loop those?”_

_“I’m not y-y-you.” Jieun coughed out between giggles, her icy fingers digging into the warm crook of Hana’s wrists, with firm certainty, and Hana whined quietly from the sensation, both because of how tight Jieun’s grasp on her was, and the cold that jolted through her veins. "I only listened to them once, enough to promote them on TV or s-s-something."_

_Hana snickered, leaning her forward against Jieun's shoulder, a little grateful for their small height difference now. Neither of them were wearing heels, just simple trainers, and normal clothes. Puffed up in winter jackets, unzipped a little, because they were still flushed from the exertion of karaoke, and Jieun wearing those cute jeans, the ones that made her calves look bigger than they actually were. "You're such a bad labelmate."_

_"N-n-not our labelmates anymore." Jieun said, glumly, into Hana's hair, which was slowly turning less and less blonde. "Just those people we can't talk about."_

_"'S dumb." Hana said, softly, "They're still our friends and dongsaengs." She was still bitter about the decision they'd made, the decision that had made them even colder to each other, that had made Sunhwa scream at everyone, that had made everybody join in._

_"Do you...do you ever wish you could turn back time?" slurred Jieun, a little, her face looking more angular as the yellow sodium streetlight washed her face to look older and sadder. "Just. Go back to a time and make things better?"_

_"Yeah." Hana said, glumly. "All the fucking time. I'd go back to before the car accident. I'd drive instead of manager-oppa instead, or something. And then we'd be better off. Things would be brighter, I think."_

_"Or even b-b-back to Hyosung-unnie's democrat-t-tization statement..." Jieun murmured, lips pulled out into a full angry sigh. "I just wish. I just wish that it wasn't like this. I feel so helpless, all the time."_

_Hana hummed sympathetically, driving her head closer into Jieun's neck, and feeling the warm, secure warmth of Jieun pressing into her waist, as they slowly made their away from the karoake place. They should have walked back faster, or made some sort of attempt to leave properly, but it felt weird and hazy, and Hana was sort of drunk, and Jieun was very drunk and they weren't really getting very far._

_"Wish sometimes I could go back to when we were younger and not become an idol." Hana murmured, darkly, into Jieun's coat, into the puffy fabric, where it wouldn't even resonate against Jieun's skin, not like she wanted it to. "Mama always used to say that I shouldn't do it. Mama said that being a singer made you colder inside, like you were a little hollow paper doll. But I never believed her, I loved her singing and I loved singing, but I should've. I should have listened."_

_Jieun hummed sympathetically, moving her arm to slip it over Hana's shoulders uncomfortably. "W-w-wonder about that a lot." Jieun agreed, "But I prefer it like this. I wouldn't have met you otherwise. You and me. Wouldn't have met. That'd be sad. You're my best friend. I k-k-kinda love you."_

_Hana felt her heart squeeze, uncomfortable, rattling, pulsating. all at once. What could she say, how could she react to something like that, that made her so happy and so scared all at once? "I love you too, Jieunnie." Hana whispered, barely audible, even to herself. But their proximity meant that Jieun heard her statement, too, under the buzzing telephone lines and strung up laundry._

_With a little drunk, snort-giggle, Jieun tilted her head back, leaning back and almost throwing Hana off her awkward stride. "I would miss H-h-hyosung unnie too, I guess. Probably not Sunhwa as much, though she's a c-c-cutie. But you I'd miss the most." Her smile was bright and honest like this, and Hana was. Well. If she admitted it to herself, she was in love and had just tumbled head-over-heelless-feet for her best friend once more, for the hundredth time in just this month alone._

_"You're so beautiful like this." Hana said, before she could keep her mouth shut, and her words to herself._

_Jieun's eyelashes fluttered, interested and strangely relaxed. "Huh? Like this?" She pulled a stupid face, which made the blackhead on her forehead stand out more, but it was beautiful anyway, Especially pretty like this, without her fake eyelashes or lipstick. She was fresh and cute, and Hana loved her the most like this, because she knew it was special for Jung Hana, something very few people in the world had seen Jieun, would ever see Jieun._

_She couldn't help but giggle. "Yes, exactly like that." she said, burying her fond smile into Jieun's shoulder, unable to keep herself upright otherwise. "But when you smile too."_

_It would be cliche to say that time slowed between them, but it honestly felt that way, because Jieun turned her face, until they were almost touching, Jieun's lips so close to brushing over Hana's cheekbones. It was quiet like this, despite the humming of cicadas and powerlines and the distant sounds of cars zipping through Seoul. It would have been so easy to just lean forward, would have been so very easy._

_And there had been something in Jieun's eyes, soft and vulnerable, that would have let her. "Hana, it's the same for me." Jieun said, breathily, like this, and Hana could smell the vodka on her breath, and the sweet aftertaste of mint and grenadine, and the faint, uncomfortably smells of too-strong flower perfume, and it was. Overwhelming in the best way and the worst way, and Hana could think of nothing but the taste of Jieun's lips._

_And Hana could have done, but she didn't. She's pulled away, seized suddenly, but how it was too much, how little she deserved this, how things would change, how Jieun might just be saying this because she was drunk. And despite Jieun's confused and slightly stricken gasp, Hana shook her head. "Sorry. I can't. I don't. I'm not gay. I don't. I like men, I'm sorry, I've been leading you on."_

_And then she sprinted and sprinted, carelessly, not caring about where she went, ready to get lost, and all she remembered most clearly from that night, was Jieun's expression, lost and lonely, and now Hana would always regret leaving her there, not going back for her._

 

 

 

 

After that, Jieun had detached herself from Hana. No texts, no late night sessions in the studios, no messages or cute photos together. And in recognition of Jieun's sudden departure, Hana avoided Jieun too. Didn't go to the housewarming of Jieun's new apartment, asked and begged to go on Yaman TV by herself, instead of with Jieun. Had stayed close to herself, as Sunhwa had ripped them apart with her inability to wait. 

And that was fine. 

-

The fanmeetings continue with alacrity, with purpose, with the sort of ready gung-ho attitude Hana had been needing. Hyosung continues to gossip with the managers about their financial issues, Hana occasionally joining in with commiseration towards their lack of pay and lack of sleep. But Jieun doesn't avoid her. Jieun sits next to her, Jieun plays with Hana's hair, leans into Hana's side during live broadcasts, where it looks weird for Hana to push her away. 

So Hana says nothing, only gives Jieun a look of confusion, that Jieun meets strongly, firmly and with absolutely no real expression, except a bland smile. It's frustrating in so many ways, and Hana has no idea of how to react to it, except to maybe relish a little in Jieun's warmth, a warmth she isn't sure she wants or deserves. 

At nights though, their room is still an awkward silence, and lights turned out far too soon for their usual escapades in foreign countries. Especially in Japan, where they can both speak the language passably enough to wander, and with very little likelihood of being recognized, it would have once been their highlight of their overseas trips. And especially during Christmas, where the food is so much tastier for those lovers wandering around, and the lights illuminate everything. But now. Well. Things change. 

And all too soon, it's their last day in the country, where they hold hands on stage and cry just a little, pressing Christmas kisses to the fans, while Hana tries to pretend she is mourning her activities and the rush of being on stage and seeing that she is loved. Hyosung is pretending to not cry in the corner of their waiting room, as they pack-up and remove their heavier stage-makeup. But Jieun is dry-eyed as per usual, texting absently on her phone to somebody.

She looks up suddenly, and catches Hana's glance, in that awkward way hey have been looking at each other all week, but this time, Jieun smiles at her, gently. "Good job, Hana." she murmurs, quietly, holding up her soft hand, delicately towards Hana. Hana stares for a moment, and hesitantly meets it in a weak hi-five. 

Jieun takes in a deep breath and steps in closer, rubbing her thumb across the inner corner of Hana's eyelids and her touch is so familiar and so nostalgic, of when they had touched more, of when they had been younger and more foolish, of when Jieun touched her freely. "Hana." she says, in her cooing baby voice, "Don't cry." 

Hana can barely hold back the sob. "We're leaving the fans." she says, a little distressed, "Why wouldn't I cry?" It's not the entire truth of why she's crying, but it's part of it. Maybe Jieun can still read her well enough to realize that Hana's lying though, because Jieun scoffs a little under her breath in that sassy way that people didn't think she was capable of doing, before stepping away, to go help a makeup unnie pack up her brushes. 

Hana watches her go, and laughs just a little, unsure of what had just happened, but sort of satisfied by it anyway. 

They go out for meat, on that last night, a treat by the TS group, and it's depressing as they're eating and grilling meat for each other, that all Hana can think is if this is someone's salary, being wasted on meat like this. But they're laughing anyway, there's a light feeling to it, to all of the staff and idols squeezed together in this tiny space, shoulder to shoulder, in a sort of solidarity. Even if the smell of sweat and perfume is a little too strong, they're all enjoying it anyway.

And maybe the soju and the meat and the warmth of the group gives Hana to courage to wrap up a small barbecue wrap and try to feed it to her members. She does it first to Hyosung, who grins and mumbles something about cute dongsaengs. And then she turns around to Jieun, who's wedged between a manager-oppa and herself, and Hana hesitatingly wraps one and nudges Jieun's shoulder.

Jieun turns around, a little confused, but upon seeing the wrap, laughs just a little, and opens her mouth wide. "Feed me, Hana-yah." she says, teasingly, and for a moment, Hana sees an image of the past settle over this, like a weird transparency, where she gets to see Jieun's face from Weekly Idol, where she had guested on Jieun's solo show, and they'd enjoyed reach other's company thoroughly, teasing each other throughout the little minigames. This time, however, Hana doesn't claim the wrap for herself, and properly feeds Jieun. 

Jieun winks, just a little, as she pulls away, but her cheeks are a little pink as she turns back towards their manager. 

It's one of the moments that confuses Hana, but still, she feels that weird clenching, squeezing pressure against her heart, that hurts but feels good at the same time, and Hana doesn't know how to feel, except just a little worried and relieved at the same time. 

With the satisfied feeling of her stomach stuffed full with warm meat, after a good week of performances and meeting with fans, Hana finds it easy to relax with their teammates, even if she feels that frenetic energy under her skin and feels her breath hitch just a little, every time she and Jieun touch a little too long, and every time they catch each other's gazes.

Hana feels stupid and a little drunk, and as it builds up to too much, she has to excuse herself for a little air, to breathe and not feel entirely sick to her stomach. Maybe she'd drunk too much soju, but she has a fairly high tolerance anyway, she knows the real reason. The cold air of the outside acts a little like a slap of reality and Hana takes in the burningly cold breaths through her nostrils, and lets the pain cauterize whatever wounds she'd seem to accumulate. 

"It's cold out." Jieun's voice says, from behind her, as she follows Hana out. Her step is surprisingly sure, for how much she'd drunk, and Hana can't help but wonder if her tolerance has increased. Just one more thing that's changed, and Hana smiles at her, a little more hesitantly. 

"It is winter. That's one of the requirements." Hana says, with a low grin, "I don't think it's allowed to be winter without cold."

"Winter in Australia is still nice." Jieun says, shoving her hands into her pockets and exhaling a cloud of white. "I heard that much. It would be nice to go to Australia, right?"

"Too many spiders for me." Hana scoffs, immediately, "And Jongup-ah kept talking about the kangaroos being able to kick too well. I'm not really here for that."

Jieun laughs at this, pressing a hand to her face, as she bends over in laughter, and well. It _is_ ridiculous, and Hana can't help but giggle just a little, weakly. The light across from them flickers a little, and Hana swallows the lump in her throat threatening to come up at the bell-like sound of laughter, interspersed with weird giggle-hiccups that marks Jieun's candid laughter. 

They lapse into quiet silence, as Hana continues to breathe, and surprisingly, this time, it is more comfortable than it has been in their hotel room for the past few days. Jieun exhales loudly, in what would almost be a sigh, but isn't, because Jieun is just wistful, not annoyed or sad. 

"It's Christmas, Hana-yah." Jieun murmurs, fiddling at her sleeve, for a moment, and Hana's own breath hitches in her throat. "I just. You know. We didn't go out during Christmas last time, but I thought. I was thinking. When were in the karaoke room, how nice it would be. If I could go you with you for Christmas. Eat some cake, record something cute for the fans. Be together. And it almost happened and then."

Jieun exhales and points her face down. her nose and cheeks are dusted red, probably from cold, but maybe because of embarrassment. She's pretty and Han wants that vision too so badly, of them at Christmas, and her stomach flips, and Hana doesn't know what to say, except, "Christmas is a time for family in Western countries." A weird fact that Junhong had mentioned once, not really relevant at all, and Jieun looks up at her, unimpressed. 

"You're _so_ \--" She cuts herself off in frustration, and turns away, displeased pout on her face. "God. Honestly. If it wasn't for literally everybody I know telling me that you're scared and afraid and actually like me a lot, I really would think you don't want this." Jieun murmurs, "You're so shitty at this, Hana."

"I--"

"I don't understand why you won't fight for me and just say it!" Jieun declares, turning around and pushing Hana's chest. "If you liked me, why won't you say it? Why won't you claim it, own it?"

"You knew!" Hana retorts, "You had to know! If you knew, why didn't _you_? Why did I have to?"

Jieun makes a high-pitched noise and stamps her foot, and her hair flies upwards, in her rage. "You didn't have to _say_ anything. All you had to do was kiss me that night and we'd have been okay! And you ran away and said you weren't gay and wouldn't reply to my calls for the rest of the night--"

"I didn't mean too--"

"--It's not enough of an excuse for me!" Jieun pants a little, her face contorted so prettily into her fury, and Hana feels uncomfortably and ready to cry, and fit to burst all at once, and she sways a little in her spot.

"Then what would be?" Hana says, through her clenched throat, voice shaky and too-quiet and hoarse to the point of being near unrecognizable. 

Jieun's face pulls up into a look, of abject dismay, before she turns on her heels, and walks down the street, towards where front of the shop would be, not saying a word. And Hana knows the answer, because she'd just _said_ it. And Hana knows it was what had been missing from their last real conversation, so. 

Hana watches _her_ back retreat down the street, this time, and thinks to herself, quietly, that this is it. If she lets Jieun go now, she will lose her forever: of this much, Hana is certain. And she sees it in the back of her mind, the warmth of Jieun's palm against the soft planes of her belly, her legs uncomfortably slung over Hana's waist despite Hana's protests, the silly giggling over Hana's dogs, her children. The sneezes and laughter and the pain, hand in hand. 

It will be hard to get there though, Hana knows. There's too much to talk about, too much to decide, decipher, deal with, from almost a year and a half of separation. There will be fights and arguments and maybe they will make each other cry, maybe it will go worse. Maybe there will truly be no chance of repairing anything. Maybe Hana will lose her forever, even as a colleague, maybe Jieun will leave just like Sunhwa, maybe she will realize that Hana is not as great as they both wanted Hana to be, and they would break over this same issue of Hana not being good enough and Jieun being too good and too strong.

And if Hana stays here, stays planted in her spot for a little while longer, and walks back to the restaurant by a different door, and goes home back to awkward silence, to the empty weirdness of her apartment, the bitterness of not even being needed or closeness, nothing will change. Nothing will change, there are no uncertainties about this future, for it will be the same; she will wait, she will wait, she will never change or grow, she will stay in that apartment until the day she dies. 

Hana bites her lip. Hana stares down at her hands, her calloused fingers, the hands to push her core strength upwards, the hands that will not touch her plastic-fragile face, the hands that paint meaningless pictures. The hands that had fed Song Jieun. 

She takes a step and walks towards her future.

**Author's Note:**

> The other 2 fics for this prompt can be found in [the collection](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/kpopolymfics2017). Competition winners are chosen by the readers, so please rate this fic using [this survey](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfGi1J_u1HkLWr5fshj29zAbH6nlW9J6BfSrGMYEJ3qOafCdA/viewform?usp=sf_link)!
> 
> Please don't forget to leave a comment for it!


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